"I play the fools that women like": Epifantsev about melodrama, "Cursed Days" and the sequel to "Green Elephant"

- A few questions about the TV series “Cursed Days”. Tell us how the work was built? How did you prepare, rehearse with the actors? What turned out to be the most difficult for you in such conditions?

- The most difficult thing was to understand the principle of presentation of the material, since this format is unfamiliar to me (the series was shot in screenlife format. - RT ). Accordingly, it was necessary to find methods that would allow this material to be perceived. I probably released four versions of the series that I was shooting. And only on the fourth did he find a style and a pitch that, it seems to me, should fall into the viewer.

- And how did you discuss and rehearse with the actors?

- First, we talked on Zoom, talked. Then already at the site. I tried to collect all the artists in one place. It seems to me that in the case of cinema this technology (shooting in screenlife format. - RT )not yet mastered, there are no mechanisms, tools that would make the product remotely quality 100%. So I cheated here.

- In your opinion, the situations that are shown in the TV series “Cursed Days” are exaggerated or more or less reflect real life during a pandemic?

- It seems to me that it is impossible to reflect real life at all. As Aesop said, in order to drink the sea, you need to block all the rivers and streams flowing into it. So in the cinema - in order to please the viewer, you need to take into account the perspectives of perception of each viewer.

Therefore, in cinema and in art, a kind of neutral experiment is created, which will allow the viewer to perceive and feel through the cinema, through art, through a fragment taken out of the context of life, something that is clear and close to him. That is, a definite message is always a failure.

I believe that the series that I shot is real and affects many states of people. Through this plot, the topic of self-isolation, phobias, complexes are exposed ... Although I still achieved genuine realism with such a slightly absurd theater.

- Would you like to repeat your experience in screenlife?

- I don’t care in what format to work. As some MMA fighters say, it’s all the same with whom to fight. I’m always interested in learning something new. I am ready to work in any genre, and it is always interesting for me to bring something of my own into it - in order to violate genre limitations, frameworks, add something completely different, not amenable to definition of the genre.

I have no desires in this life at all. Here, I'm sitting on the couch - because I want to. And to sit and dream about something ... Sometimes only, maybe, regarding some kind of childhood phobias, I have dreams. But I try to drive them, as they prevent me from living.

I had already stopped sitting and dreaming about taking something off, because I realized that life is a provocation, a kind of cunning. When you dream about one thing, you miss what is real and what is much more interesting in the context of the given time. Therefore, I relate to life and art, to creativity, as an observer and hunter. I hunt for what can fly past me at a time when I am concentrated on my desires. This maneuvering between your desires and what is is a very exciting process in life.

- Nevertheless, for example, several years ago you talked about plans to make the film “Operation ZS” (the sequel to “Green Elephant.” - RT ). Did they really take place?

- It was, I think, a very interesting idea. It’s just that I don’t have such penetrative forces that would allow me to carry out such a project. I sit and wait by the sea for the weather. When the puzzle of this reality is complete, everything will happen by itself.

I think this film is being shot in my head. And when it is fully ripe, natural valve openings will occur that will allow the project to materialize. Now I see people being unprepared for it to come true. Something is missing. People who will be infected with this idea and give me full carte blanche, financing.

We threw a fishing rod, but there is no interest ... I am not a producer and I can not look for money. I rejected the idea of ​​crowdfunding. I felt it seemed pointless to me. There is not going to collect such money, which is needed.

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- Is there a role for you in this film?

- Of course. We have a script written. This is a remake. It is full of the same phrases, it reveals many topics that were not disclosed in the first film. For example, we begin to tell a story about winter. This is an insider story where heroes awaken after hibernation and insanity. There are political allusions, but he is rather about a universal elixir of joy and happiness. This is a movie about happiness.

- You have repeatedly acted in projects both as a director and as an actor at the same time. Is it difficult to shoot yourself?

- I have been doing this since the Shchukin school. I myself directed my works, I played them myself. And basically engaged in productions more than the development of the acting profession. I was passionate about the ideas of surrealism, absurdity, a theater of cruelty and various modern acting techniques, which are often incomprehensible to young artists. And so I'm used to it, it’s easier for me to remove everything myself, to play there, than to explain and spend my strength and nerves on people who from this fall into some kind of, say, numbness, misunderstanding.

This is difficult work, but interesting, and the more difficult it is, the more interesting. This is such a virtuoso style. They need to be owned, mastered for more than one year, so that everything is organic. I have been doing this since childhood.

- But still, when you shoot yourself, especially in the traditional format, you don’t immediately see yourself from the side ...

- Yes.

- According to your feelings, you have to do more takes, compared with those cases when you are only in the frame?

- Differently. I think the number of takes is from insecurity, from inexperience. Still, in what the actor does, it is not his visual presentation that matters, but the inner one. It depends on the task, on the motivation of the characters. If it is defined, understandable, and some idiots producers who are often present at the sites and create chaos do not bother me, then I feel very comfortable, I do not need to see myself from the outside. It’s enough just to understand the character’s task, motivation and his impulse, which allows me to achieve results, to play a role.

Freedom is the highest state for an artist. The problem of modern cinema is that producers often create a mess on the sites and interfere with both the director and the artists. This is the most vile situation, and I often come across this. Unfortunately, this movie only gets worse.

- Do you think this does not change over time? Now it is not possible to improvise and change characters for yourself anymore?

- No, the producers - they are often so ambitious and stupid people that they can not be explained. Several generations must pass in our cinema in order for some competent people to understand the technology of filming to appear. Here, so far few people understand it. The movie that we shoot is very primitive. Such, you know, of the third world. Except for very rare films.

- In your opinion, this applies only to, say, large cinema and television, or including projects for online services? In “Cursed Days” did you have the opportunity to improvise?

- Yes, I improvised. Not even improvising, I tried to saturate the story and make from this dramatic text not just a sketch and a humorous attraction, but also to justify, find the inner motivations of the characters, make them more authentic, and reveal some additional interesting messages for the viewer. To make it happen, you know ... I really love it when the viewer watches a funny movie and does not laugh, but realizes that it is fun. “Damn, this is ridiculous,” says the viewer with a serious face. And for me this is the highest state of comedy.

I do not like rzhach. I love when laughter, joy and unrestrained delight occurs inside, and not on the face of the face. Not with loud laughter, overlapping the whole meaning contained in this film.

- Speaking of production projects that are shot in strict frames, can you name your favorite paintings with your participation, those that you are completely satisfied with?

- No, there are none. Maybe Flint, because I did it. There I managed to do what I wanted: to talk about the character and about this method of influence, to remove an unusual action movie with elements of poetry. Also, maybe, the work of Svetlana Baskova in the film "For Marx ...". It was very interesting to play there.

I love such sharp roles. Unfortunately, I rarely get this kind of work, since I am mainly exploited as idiots, fools, male idiots, which women really, really like.

For some reason, they like to watch a man dissolve his snot, confessing his love, running after her. I think they’re doing some crap. Lost people who do not know how to interact with women.

This is a criminal movie, for this it is necessary to forbid people to take up a camera, close channels ... I am not a supporter of radical methods, but it just leads to degradation.